New player - Amphibious operations?

[BossGnome]

Hi,

I just bought CWII a few days ago, and I am trying to find how to play reasonably competently. I think I have the basics down, but I keep getting stuck when trying to conduct amphibious operations, namely, first attacking the coastal forts on the islands along the confederate coast. Maybe some more experienced gentlemen here could help me figure out how to do things better.

1) How many men in general are needed to take one of these forts? I tried once with about 1,000, and that was WAYYY too few, and then I tried again with 10,000 and both the fort and the amphibious landers took about 500 casualties, with the fort falling. I figure that there must be a happy middle somewhere in between these two numbers; what are your usual composition for amphibious landing forces to take forts?

2) Generals - so, I once tried loading banks onto a transport with a force, just to have the bastard refuse to activate once we got to our destination (in the gulf) so i just had a bunch of troops sitting there, refusing to go into assault mode. My solution was to remove banks from command and just have the troops assault the force "leaderless" and with the 35% penalty, but... wtf? So leaders are useless when trying to quickly capture forts along the coast?

3) Supplies - how do I ensure forces operating amphibiously are well supplied by sea?

4) Cohesion required to assault - I tried "fort hopping" I.E. capturing one fort on the north carolina coast, then loading the troops into transports and going a few miles further down to capture another fort without first going back to Washington to regroup. Of course, my troops had fairly low (below 1/3rd) cohesion, but I figured that would be enough since there were about 10,000 of them and it was just a measely fort guarded by less than 1,000 guys. I left the troops leaderless, because of the issue mentioned with Banks above. Then - surprise! The troops REFUSE to assault, instead holding themselves into simple "offensive" posture. I thought that this was a mistake that I had made, so I reloaded the turn, and nothing still. Is there a minimum cohesion required to attack? Both supplies and ammo were still very adequate.


Thanks in advance for your help guys. So far, this game seems very interesting, but I still dont really know what I am doing.

[Gray Fox]

First off, welcome to the forum of the best Civil War game around!

1. I've read that a Division should be enough. I consider coastal fort snatching to be a waste of resources and an exploit of the fact that the defending fort guns won't fire at invaders. So someone else will surely tell you how to do this "competently".

2. Anything worth doing, is worth doing well. So if you use a poor leader or no leader and it sucks, well use a good leader (which is why it is a waste of resources because the better leaders should be doing something like capture Richmond).

3. If you have some transports with supplies with the transports that have the troops then the supplies should be available for the troops.

4. Low cohesion is a deal breaker. Your units are probably just taking forever to land because of low cohesion. That's why you're not getting the assault.

[BossGnome]

Thanks for the answer!

I am a long time Gary Grigsby fan, but I got quickly tired of his War Between the States (too simplistic for me). The reason why I mention fort snatching is because in WBTS, it was one of the key early war actions that the union had to take, as it highly increased the blockade percentage against the confederacy.

Is this not the case in ACWII? Surely capturing the forts on the mouth of the Mississppi, at least, should cause a blockade of the ports there? I know that the fort where Butler is holed up at the beginning of the war (cant remember the fort's name right now) blockades places like Richmond, but is there a way to see which forts do cause blockade, and which don't? I didn't notice any new blockade markers after capturing some forts on the N. Carolina coast....

[Pocus]

There is probably a PDF or word doc around but there is no clear indication indeed. If an harbor is blockaded (and snatching nearby forts definitively helps) then blockade % will increase.

[Gray Fox]

I'm not a big fan of blockading via forts, but I don't think that holding New Orleans blockades all the CSA ports on the Mississippi. Some of the forts do blockade ports and this will eventually increase the overall blockade percentage, as long as the CSA doesn't just retake the fort. You can of course expend more resources to garrison each captured fort with a force to prevent this, but I would again point out that these could be put to better use. IIRC, you can cursor over a fort and get a script of which sea region it exerts a ZOC over.

P.S. The blockade of Winfield Scott's so named Anaconda Plan was a way to slowly pressure the southern States to return to the Union without killing half a million people or burning cities to the ground. However, you don't have to follow this strategy. You certainly can play ACW2 and be true to the historical record, with all of its mistakes, however, other strategies are also possible. Good luck!

[BossGnome]

Actually, when I captured some forts on the N. Carolina coast, I got the captured naval artillery, and a free fixed fort garrison spammed in the region. So, actually, as the Union it seems you lose no troops to keep a hold on the forts.


In addition, wouldn't holding the forts at the mouth of the mississippi, or even New Orleans, impede ALL traffic on the mississippi, since it all has to come out the same way? That would be the logical outcome to me...

[Gray Fox]

You get a re-fill of the original garrison...which your army so easily destroyed. Soooo...

I don't think that you get to blockade all the ports on the Mississippi with one fell swoop.

[elxaime]

Has anyone ever been truly effective with the blockade strategy? Granted, the Union player has to guess what is going on behind enemy lines. But do Confederate side players really fear the blockade much?

[Jim-NC]

About cohesion and fort busting. Take your division and let it rest a turn or 2 inside the fort after capture. That allows the cohesion to recover. This is slower than capture and move on, but your troops will be able to capture each force it comes to.

[Captain_Orso]

Also, if you have time, you can wait to get a breach before assaulting. Put a Pontooneer unit with your invasion force and maybe one of the leaders with siege ability, and if you have money buy a siege artillery ahead of time --they take a while to build--.

Also, any artillery with good offensive properties will help in gaining a breach, so an extra 10 lb-er Parriot or two --20 lb-er if you're extravagant, Rodman if you're really extravagant-- will definitely assist in gaining that breach. Basically each multiple of the defender's defensive artillery value gives you 1 siege point extra.

Once your force invades, just leave them in defensive posture for a couple of turns so that they recover cohesion. You should get a breach with in a turn or two at the latest.

Once your force has regained cohesion and gained a breach, or if you are not willing to wait so long, even if they haven't gained a breach, when your commander is activated, assault the fort. With a division you will almost always win, unless the South has reinforced.

IFAIK the South can have an auto-garrison appear in the fort and stay there as long as you are besieging it. As the Union I got a number of them in Fort Pickens. In fact I got to keep some of them. Often times when the CS force left the fort to replenish supplies the auto-garrison remained in place. When the CS force returned I got another one.

I believe the auto-garrisons are not completely "free" though. I believe you have to pay the CC's (Conscript Companies) for them, but you don't have to pay money nor WSU, so that's something.

With the auto-garrison reinforcements alone I've held Fort Pickens from being assault a number of times by about a division and a half. I'm sure I was a bit lucky, but if you want to be sure to hold one of those forts, just put some extra artillery (12 lb-ers) and a few more infantry regiments into the fort. And if you absolutely want to hold it, put Shields (fort defender ability) into the mix.